Namaste Friends!
I would like to share with you the most surreal, tragically beautiful day that I had in a long time. So many storys packed in twenty four hours, it was quite extraordinary.
My mum and my aunt just visited me in Nepal and we are currently traveling around. We took a bus from Kathmandu to Chitwan National Park which turned out to be the worst bus journey I had so far. And I had a lot of them. What was supposed to be 7h, took us over 12h. A lot of people on the bus emptied their stomachs, I felt sick as hell and my mum and aunt were just shocked by the nepalese reality. The traffic was so dense that we feared for our lifes several times. Imagine fully packed busses encountering each other on roads so small that it would barely fit, no protection on the side and cliffs of more than a hundred meter in height. I am not someone who gets scared easily, but this was dramatic.
That was quite a harsh introduction to Nepal and I felt terribly sorry for the two...
We could barely talk when we arrived at the hotel, somehow managed to climb the stairs to our room, falling asleep at 8 pm.
I woke up quite early the next moring, took my camera and started what would later turn out as one of the most extraordinary days.
managed to get this beautiful shot of a man bathing in the river in the morning, the water was super cold! I was quite impressed, packed in three layers of clothing
the day started with thick mist, I could barely see those two guys on the other side of the river
I turned my head - the most fantastic sights whereever you look
The fog slowly revealed the surreal landscape that we were in
And it revealed some other inhabitants of the river, remember the guy taking a bath? That was rougly 150m away from these guys!
I continued my walk and could not believe my eyes when I stumbled upon this sleeping, little big fella. A free living baby rhino. Say what?! - As I later found out, the baby got seperated from its mother by a flood, got rescued by humans, is now living close to the village and very used to humans - should have seen my face when I found it
on the way to the breakfast I had a look up and discovered these bee hives, as large as my torso!
One of the rather sad sights, elephant rides are still a big tourist attraction. I cannot stand seeing those beautiful beings in chains.. Please, do not participate in this bullshit!
Still, it is very impressive to be that close to them
In the evening, I encountered this goup of women on the river. At first, I thought they were washing or taking a bath. Then, I figured out that it was some kind of ceremony and that some of the women were crying. When they finally left, I managed to get a talk with one of them and found out the real, quite shocking story. The husband of one of the women died on this very day in a car accident. His car fell down a cliff, on the very same road that we came the other day. Man, you can imagine how I felt afterwards...
"In Hindu tradition, the dead are cremated on the banks of the holy Bagmati River. It is the ultimate wish of a Hindu to be cremated along the river bank. The body must be dipped into the river three times before cremation. The chief mourner, who is usually the first son of the deceased, will light the funeral pyre and take a bath in the holy river water immediately after the cremation." - Even though this is not Bagmati and the body has probably not been recovered yet, still it must be connected to this tradition.
Let go of attachment, let go of your love
What a day, What a reminder to be grateful of every day we have.
Love and Light my friends.
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